~ 8th Grade ~
It started with mirrors.
Vince—Veronica—had never liked them. They lurked everywhere: in locker doors, classroom windows, the glossy surface of the bathroom sink. Every glimpse of his reflection felt like an ambush. His face wasn’t ugly. It was… fine. Average. A little pale, a little angular. But it didn’t feel like his. Not really.
Something inside twisted every time he saw it. A quiet recoil. Like someone had snuck into his skin while he slept and forgotten to leave.
He didn’t have the language for it yet. Just a gnawing sense of wrongness, like waking from a dream you can’t explain but can’t shake either.
His voice had started cracking, dipping deeper without warning. He began slouching more, trying to hide the way his shoulders were widening, his limbs stretching.
